


Pining Away

by StarlightSystem



Series: Transcendence AU [9]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence (Gravity Falls), Dissociation, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 19:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18976567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightSystem/pseuds/StarlightSystem
Summary: Mabel was Dipper’s strongest tether to reality, and after she dies, he starts to recede into himself. Blinded by grief, he struggles to hold on to his humanity.(or: Alcor Gets Summoned By Another MRA And Is Just Completely Done With Listening To This Garbage)





	Pining Away

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes places in the [Transcendence AU](http://transcendence-au.tumblr.com/)! This is a shared universe and I do not own the Pines family OCs.

"From the depths of hell, by the power of all that is unholy, I call upon the Twin Star, warper of reality and bringer of chaos, Alcor!"

A massive plume of fire engulfed the summoning circle, and Anderson smiled. This was it, this was what he had been preparing for all this time! For too long had he been mistreated and ignored, and now everyone that had ever done him wrong was going to pay. Anderson hadn't resorted to the dark arts simply in order to play tea party with little baby demons that would inevitably turn out to be too weak to fulfill his wishes. No, Anderson had gone straight to the top, to the most fearsome, bloodthirsty, and powerful demon known to humanity: Alcor the Dreambender!

The plume of fire dissipated, and the orange flames of the ceremonial candles shifted to blue, bathing the goat Anderson had slaughtered as a sacrifice in an eerie glow. A wave of dread physically swept through the room. Anderson flinched and his heart started palpitating, but he pushed through the adrenaline clouding his mind. No. This was it. A figure began to materialize above the circle. There was no turning back now. Everything was going according to plan.

Or, was it?

What looked like a young man, perhaps in his late 20s, had appeared above the summoning circle. He was dressed in a black suit and had a top hat that was floating just above his head. Anderson could see the coal black eyes, the clawed hands, the bat wings, the shark teeth in his slightly agape mouth, all of which matched the description of Alcor he knew. But, the man was also lying flat on his back in mid-air, nary a muscle twitching. There were no further fireworks, nor was there the screeching announcement of arrival that he was expecting from a demon of Alcor's status. Somehow, this scared Anderson more than if Alcor had shown up shrieking and violent.

"A-alcor?" Anderson asked, suddenly a lot more nervous.

There was no response from the demon.

Anderson gulped, and then decided he'd better get on with it. "I, uh, I brought you here to-"

Anderson's speech was cut off by a sudden _crunch_. A large bite mark had appeared in the goat at the center of the summoning circle. Rapidly, more crunching sounds could be heard as more and more of the goat disappeared. Alcor still had not moved a muscle. However, Anderson could see there was now blood on his teeth and claws.

Alarm bells started ringing in Anderson's head. None of the books or online chatrooms described a demon ever acting this… reserved. But, Alcor had accepted his offering, so the summoning must at least be going somewhat well.

The goat was all but a small puddle of blood on the floor at this point, so Anderson felt that this would be a good time to resume his demands. "Oh, Alcor the Dreambender, Destroyer of Light, King of Darkness, I have summoned you here to make a deal. All my life I have been cast aside for no reason. My intellectual pursuits have been constantly turned down by people unwilling to open their eyes to the lies they have been taught. My romantic advances always end in scorn because women would rather be abused by brutes than educated by gentlemen. I have been an underdog all of my life and I will not put up with it any longer!"

Alcor didn’t respond. All traces of the goat had disappeared by this point. Anderson started to sweat -- the demon was clearly alive, as he had eaten the sacrifice, but the lack of movement was really starting to creep him out. If he could eat an entire goat without moving a muscle, what else was he capable of doing without a single moment’s forewarning?

Still, Anderson pressed on. "Here are my demands, demon! I want to be the head of my domain! I want to be surrounded by beautiful women, and I want everyone to appreciate my teachings!"

Again, the room was bathed in silence once Anderson stopped speaking. Minutes passed. Alcor continued to hover completely still in the center of the circle. The blood was by now gone from his teeth and claws. Anderson began to panic, and looked around wildly. There was nothing there -- it was just him and the Lord of Darkness in the room.

"N-now, you see here, Alcor," Anderson stammered, losing any previous confidence that he knew what was going on. "You have to do what I want. I summoned you and you accepted my offering!" He fumed for a moment, and started to shout. "Are you just like everyone else, then? Unwilling to even lift a finger for the downtrodden people of society such as myself? You fucking disg-"

Anderson’s vision went black, and, startled, he stumbled over backwards. “What the fuck is going on?” he yelled. If there was a response, he couldn’t hear it, as he was deafened by what sounded like thousands of people whispering directly into his ears. He screamed in pain, and hugged his knees to his chest.

And then, it was over, just as quickly as it had started, and he could both see and hear again. Everything was just as it was before, except he was still on the floor, and Alcor’s right hand was bathed in blue fire. Anderson smiled. Maybe Alcor was just playing some tricks -- he was a demon, after all. But it looked like he would be willing to make a deal. Entrenched in his excited thoughts, Anderson ran up to the levitating figure, and eagerly shook his hand.

There was a loud _pop!_ , followed by an all-consuming feeling of grogginess. Anderson tried to look around, and realized that he was made of stone. He tried to move, tried to scream, tried to _think_ and found that he was completely immobilized. However, he could still see Alcor, lying completely still in midair, almost as if he too was a statue. His mouth was still frozen hanging slightly open, but Anderson could swear he was smiling.

Another _pop!_ , and Anderson found himself transported to a warm, humid room, full of screaming and… laughter? His vision adjusted, and he realized he was standing in front of a swimming pool. A crown had been placed on his head, and in his hands he held a glorious decree: "NO RUNNING, NO DIVING, NO ROUGH-HOUSING." A splash of water smacked him in the face as a beautiful bikini-clad woman ignored the rules and dove into the pool, igniting the shrill whistle of the lifeguard.

True to the letter of his bargain, Alcor had given Anderson women and authority. The candles around the summoning circle went out, and Alcor, still without having ever moved a muscle, vanished.

 

* * *

 

Dipper appeared back in the Mystery Shack. The living room was dark and quiet, just the way he left it. He plopped out of the air onto the sofa, still in the exact same position as before. He neither breathed nor blinked -- after all, what was the point? Those were things humans did.

His thoughts drifted thickly around him, some more tangible than others. He was so sick and tired of the people who would summon him just to read an ill-prepared manifesto at him and spout off the same generic and malleable demands. In the past, sure, he would've enjoyed feasting on the chaos he could unravel by fulfilling his summoner's wishes in the cruelest way possible. But, lately, it didn't feel like he could enjoy anything anymore.

It was midnight. The Mystery Shack was empty, but for a bunch of books, stolen alien machinery, and a sad dream demon. No one lived here anymore, but he couldn't stop returning every day to try and relive those memories of a happier day. It still felt like their house. It still felt like her house.

Mabel had died almost a year ago. Of course, he had seen it coming. Mabel made a point of never asking him when it would happen, but somehow, she could tell. Maybe it was the chill in her joints, or the creak in her bones. Or maybe it was the fact that Dipper started crying more often while talking to her, and that the number of forks dripping with golden blood that she found lying around the house was increasing. There wasn't much she could blame him for, though -- she was getting off at the next stop, and he would have to keep on going.

The moment she died, he felt something within him snap. After weeks of his inner sight zooming in tighter and tighter on the link that connected them until it was all he could see, it suddenly went out like a candle, and he felt nothing but loneliness. Of course, he was never truly alone, not when he had legions of cultists obsessed with meeting him and entire planes of existence that he could theoretically raze to the ground if he so desired. But there was a difference between being alone and being lonely, and he felt that difference, hard, as he sat in the cold hospital room, blind even to the presence of the niblets, only able to tug on his sister's arm and call her name like a confused kitten.

At first, he was able to keep himself somewhat together. He helped plan the funeral, and hugged every one of her kids, grandkids, great-grandkids, _and_ great-great-grandkids. He gave a heartfelt speech that left everyone in tears and also slightly dizzy. He laughed and sang and cried with his massive family, and for a little, it seemed like he'd maybe be able to go on.

But then the funeral was over. Then his family started slowly leaving the Shack to travel back to their various places of domicile, and though Dipper could have easily visited any of them in an instant, he suddenly felt less stable without so many people around to ground him. He knew he wasn't alone in this world, but all he could think about was his dear departed twin.

Not only that, but he had also refused to answer a single summons during the week of the funeral, and that effort started to take a toll on him. He began to spend a lot of time out of the house, answering multiple summonings a day in order to work off the backlog. It should've been a distraction from his loss, but instead he started to feel cold. Every time a raving cultist demanded the world of him, he searched himself for the link to Mizar the Gleeful, for the tether to humanity he could always rely on to ground himself. Every time he couldn't find it, he felt colder and colder inside, and more and more cultists went up in marvelous displays of demonfire. And then every time he returned to the Mystery Shack to find that she wasn't there, he felt more convinced that it wasn't really his home anymore, and that he belonged in the Mindscape.

There was a part of him that encouraged this, that prickly feeling that had been practically begging him since the Transcendence to give up on trying to retain his humanity. He was, after all, a dream demon. Humanity was fleeting. The Mindscape was forever. He'd have to give up this facade eventually. Why not now?

In his mind, he didn’t have to think these thoughts, feel this overwhelming loss. He didn’t have spend days crying in the attic every time he returned from a summons where some horrible perversions of humanity had slaughtered children for his benefit. He didn’t have to mourn his actions whenever he decimated a sect of cultists and feasted on their souls. He didn’t have to _care_ about anyone or anything other than himself. He didn’t have to waste time on these thoughts because he found that he could get by without thinking.

So he started spending more time in his own world, dancing in the emptiness, and then getting lost in the darker side of himself. And as this time went on, the call to just _not think_ became more alluring than the real world. Eventually, he stopped speaking -- he was too detached from the world to really be able to engage with anyone. Later, he stopped moving, too. Why go through all the effort? He could scare people perfectly well with his magic. It got to the point where the only thing that would get through to him was the uncomfortable jerk as the world was swept away from beneath him and he was deposited in some sad person’s summoning circle.

He always told her, "Mabel, I don't know what I'll do without you." Ever a demon of his word, Dipper found that the past year had mostly been a blur -- without a tether to reality, he became less and less aware of what he was doing. He thought, maybe after a few months he’d feel better, but then suddenly half a year had already passed and it was like nothing. To an immortal dream demon, it may as well have been nothing. Why worry about losing time when you had all the time in the world?

In the quiet of the Shack, some part of him swore he could hear voices, awkward laughter, and the shattering of glass. He dismissed them as merely echoes of a happier time. No one else was here. He didn't need to be here either. Without closing his eyes, Dipper turned his consciousness inward.

 

* * *

 

Acacia was a little startled to see her uncle appear in the Mystery Shack. Sure, after growing up around him, she was pretty familiar with his sudden entrances, but Dipper had been making himself scarce as of late, and so it was a surprise just to see him at all. There was also the fact that he had popped into existence lying completely flat and floating a meter above the sofa she was sitting on.

"Uncle Dipper?" she asked, putting down her tea. "Long time no see."

There was no response from the demon. Acacia made a face, and was about to get up, when her uncle suddenly turned off the floating and fell down onto her lap. Acacia yelped in surprise. Good thing she had already put down her tea.

"Acacia?" Willow called from the kitchen. "Everything alright in there? Did a firebird fly into the window again?"

"Uh, I'm good," Acacia responded. "Uncle Dipper is here. He doesn't look so good."

Willow poked her head through the doorway, and sighed. Sure enough, there was Uncle Dipper, planking on her sister, face still frozen in furtive misery. She grabbed a folding chair for her sister and pulled it up to the coffee table. "Feel free to wiggle your way off the couch," she said. "You won't bother him."

Acacia did so, and then proceeded to ignore the folding chair, opting to sit on the coffee table instead. Willow smiled, and sat in the folding chair. Acacia smiled too, then picked up her tea and sipped it in silence for a few minutes.

"Thanks again for driving out to spend the weekend with me," Willow said. "Hank called and said he can't make it until tomorrow, so it's just us tonight." They both glanced over to the demon on the couch, but didn't say anything more for a few minutes.

"So, uh," Acacia said, breaking the silence, "what's going on?"

Willow sighed again. She picked up her own cup of tea and blew on it. "He's been doing this a lot. Just… lying around with the same blank expression on his face, not moving a muscle. Sometimes he vanishes for a few hours to answer summons, but when he returns, nothing has changed. It’s like he forgot that I live here. I don't think he can even see us right now. His aura is so dark and clouded, it worries me. But I don't know what to do. I can't tell him how he should grieve."

Acacia put her tea back down. "I've been worried too," she said. "He used to visit us all the time. The kids, too. Reina and I haven't seen him in months. Josefa keeps calling and asking if we've seen him because she misses their late night chats. Hell, we’re old enough that our grandkids are having kids. Shouldn't he be here for that? When we lost Mom, I… I didn't think we were going to lose him too."

Willow didn't respond to this, so Acacia kept going. "The worst part is, Mom would be so upset about this. She always put her family before anything else. If she knew Uncle Dipper had stopped talking to us, I'm sure she'd give him hell for it. It's almost like…" Acacia trailed off, a tear forming in her eye.

Willow leaned forward and put her hand on her sister's arm. "Almost like what?" she asked.

Acacia sighed, and wiped her eye. "I'm probably just overreacting out of grief myself, but like… Do you ever feel like maybe Uncle Dipper just doesn't love us as much as Mom?"

Willow inhaled sharply, and started coughing. Acacia panicked slightly at this, and grabbed the inhaler sitting on the coffee table so she could offer it to her sister. Willow just shook her head, and gave a little scowl. The coughing soon gave way, and she took a big gulp of her tea.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to upset you," Acacia said.

"It's fine," Willow responded, although Acacia could detect the trace of a wheeze in her sister's voice. "You're fine. I've… I've had that thought too. It hurts, it really does. But then I think back on all the adventures we've shared, and all the little things he's done for us over the years, and I tell myself that I'm wrong. I know he loves me -- loves us, more than anything else in the world. I feel the bond that links us together and I just know that he’s still in there somewhere. I think that he's so blinded by his grief that he doesn't even know he's hurting us. He doesn't realize that we could be grieving together, and instead he's trapped in his own world."

Acacia nodded. "I know you're probably right. I guess I sort of know that he might come out of this eventually. But it's just not fair. I want him in my life. He may have infinite time, but we don't."

There was another long silence, and then Willow put down her tea. "I think I need to take a walk."

"Oh, that sounds really good right now!" Acacia responded, standing up. "Let me just go get my coat."

"No," Willow said, shaking her head. "I'd like to be alone for a bit."

"Wills, it's the middle of the night, and we’re in our 90s. I'll just go into the other room, or I could drive to the diner if you want some space."

Willow huffed. "Acacia, can you just let me be mysterious and let me take my late night walk through the woods?"

Acacia stared at her sister, and then at her uncle still dissociating on the couch. Something was up. Well, maybe. With Willow, you never really could tell. She nodded warily, and sat back down on the coffee table.

Willow took a deep breath and stood up, the sound of creaking bones filling the silence. She went over to the closet and put on two jackets, which she knew wouldn't be enough to keep her warm, but it was something. If she got too cold, she could always conjure up a flame. She opened the front door, and gave her sister a little wave.

"Have a nice walk!" Acacia called out, the uncertainty audible in her voice.

Willow shivered. "I think I will," she responded, and then stepped into the night.

 

* * *

 

Dipper, his senses fully cut off from the reality of the Mystery Shack, burrowed into his own mind. He gazed upon the Mindscape, and picked out a particularly vibrant field of horrors to float down to. He sat, cross-legged, at the crest of a hill, which was overlooking a beautiful sea of lava. A flock of nightmares stampeded past him, and he almost smiled. Almost.

_Good, you're doing better._

Dipper was silent. A nightmare broke off the flock and trotted over to him. He idly reached up a hand to pet the familiar, which nuzzled him in return.

_It's taken a while, but you might finally be getting used to this._

He grimaced. That prickly voice was back. That voice that had plagued his deepest thoughts since the Transcendence, the voice that flooded through him at his worst moments. Bill Cipher was dead -- this he knew -- but Dipper was still being haunted by his ghost. Instinctively, he reached for his connection to Mabel. Nope. Nothing.

_It's better this way._  
_You weren't being yourself._  
_You're a demon._  
_Your purpose is to cause chaos._

"I am myself," Alcor whispered. "This is who I've always been."

_You were just going through a phase._  
_Now you're finally free from the limitations of humanity!_  
_You’re not Pine Tree anymore, kid._  
_Nothing left to tie you down._  
_It'd be so easy to just let go._

Dipper laid down on the grass and started to whimper. Maybe the voice was right. Maybe it was time to stop obsessing over one meaningless soul. There were so many more at his disposal, to have, to use, to feast on. He reached out one last time, trying to find any trace of his Mizar. His hand was only met with the curious face of the nightmare.

The prickly voice began to laugh. Alcor closed his eyes and started to zoom out his inner sight. Gathering all of his strength, he grabbed the dead bond that once had connected him to his twin, and pushed. The voice's laughter got louder, and a triangular form started to take shape in the air. One, two, three, push. One, two, three, push. The bond started slipping out of his awareness, creeping further from the center of his mind. The ground started to shake as the demonic cackling became overwhelming. He looked away, unable to watch, and-

He felt a weird _pang!,_ like he had just been hit in the back of the head.

Alcor opened his eyes, and his jaw dropped. There were other links in here. They were glowing with different colors, most of them bright gold, with the occasional royal blue. They were everywhere, so numerous that Alcor couldn't believe he hadn't noticed them. No, they had been there the whole time, and his mind had zoomed in so tightly on Mizar that they had slipped his awareness.

The triplets. Mabel's children. Of course. They were his, and they were bonded to him. And they had children of their own, who were all also named by and bonded to him, to Dipper. Of course. He remembered. The voice stopped laughing, and the triangle floated over into his line of sight.

_Hey, what's going on?_  
_Don't get any funny ideas!_  
_Those are just worthless human souls!_

He felt the _pang!_ again, and looked around. One of the bonds was bright purple. Willow… Willow was in danger. Willow was _his_ , Willow was part of his family, Willow was a tether to the world and he was such a _fool_ for forgetting it. He reached out and grabbed the link and for the first time in a year felt how strong it was in his hands.

_No! You fool!_  
_You can't stay tethered to their doomed world forever!_  
_No one wants you there, no one understands you!_  
_You are wasted potential!_

The ground started shaking more violently than before, but Dipper ignored it. He solidified his grip on the link with Willow, and started pulling himself along it, as if he was climbing up a rope. The prickly voice began to scream, and Dipper could feel himself being pulled backwards, toward the violence. Still, he pressed on, putting one hand in front of the other, pulling himself through the void between worlds as hard as he could until-

Dipper's frozen form on the sofa bolted upright and he gasped for air. Acacia, still sitting on the coffee table, yelped in shock and fell backwards, dropping her teacup on the floor.

"Willow," the demon moaned, "Willow, my Little Fighter, she's in danger."

Startled, Acacia just nodded in response. Dipper closed his eyes and focused on Willow, feeling out her location. In the woods. Caught by a cult. He let out an ungodly snarl, and then vanished. His eldest niece continued to sit there on the floor, mouth agape, trying to process what had just happened.

 

* * *

 

Willow found herself sitting in a summoning circle, hands bound by rope. Her head was pounding, but it didn’t seem like she was seriously hurt. Captured by a cult, sure, but she didn't really see that as a big problem.

Figures in hooded robes pottered around the darkened room, preparing for the summoning ritual. Great, the most clichéd cultist garb imaginable. Willow peered down to see what else was in store for her. From the looks of it, the circle was drawn to summon Darganal the Petrifying. She rolled her eyes. Pathetic.

One of the figures noticed her disapproval. “You there, girl, what are you doing?” the figure jeered.

“Oh, just taking a look at your summoning circle,” Willow responded. Her voice was confident, but she was betrayed by the wheeze which had grown stronger since she left the Shack. “You're a fool for summoning Daragnal. Zie’s just going to turn you all to stone. Also, who are you calling ‘girl’? I'm 93 years old. Look at you, tying up a defenseless old woman as a sacrifice for your insipid ritual. I can't wait to see you all burn.”

“You insolent witch!” the cultist spat, both figuratively and literally. “You're not the sacrifice, you're the deal! Daragnal will turn you to stone so we can harness your power!”

Willow tried to laugh, but it cascaded into a spluttering of coughs. The cultist stared at her, and another hooded figure at the other end of the room called over “Hey, you're killing the witch! Not cool!” The room erupted into laughter at this, and Willow, between wheezes, couldn't help but marvel at how incompetent these people were.

“If I were a witch, I'd already be out of here,” Willow said, sticking her tongue out.

The cultist slapped her across the face, scraping her with their ring in the process. “Don't play games with us, witch. We can see it in your aura. We know that you've been marked by a demon.”

Willow coughed again, and bent over, trying to catch her breath. A drop of blood fell from the cut on her face to the stone floor. The cultists laughed again at her pain, but when she looked back up, she was smiling. Her throat fighting against her the entire time, she slowly managed to squeak: “Oh…. yeah……? Which….. one…..?”

All at once, the room went black. The floor began to rumble, and a couple of the cultists screamed.

“What's going on?” someone yelled from the other side of the room. “We haven't started the ritual yet!”

A tangible feeling of dread came over Willow, but she just continued to smile. She wasn't the only one -- a grinning mouth had materialized in the center of the room. It had two rows of pointed shark teeth, which glowed ominously in the darkness. A pair of bright yellow eyes showed up to accompany the smile. The face started to laugh a horrible, ear-splitting laugh.

“We've gotta get out of here!” someone yelled.

“The doors are all locked!” squealed another.

The ceremonial candles all lit up at the same time, revealing a clawed figure in a black suit, floating in the middle of the room. The huge bat wings sprouting from its lower back were flapping furiously, and it was wearing a top hat a few inches above its head.

“W͎͙H̩O̝ͅ ̖̩̭͚͝ͅDA҉̞͕R̶̟E͖̣̲ͅS̪̘̬̠ ̻͍͔̼̟͉̗ṮO̸ ST̤̺͢E̝A͏̹L̦̺͓ ̟F̜̟̙̼̞̻͓R͔O̷M͘ ̰͙̞̺̲AL͓̥̙͎̥͇̲COR̮̬ ̸͇̪̮̝̪̮͕T̵̻̰͈ͅH̗̩̣̱̲͔͓͜Ẹ͉ ̪̥D̖̮̣̥͝ͅR̦̰̞̠͇E͖̪̣A̦͇̺M̠͚̤̬͢B͉̮̰͕͠E̳̜͙̲͘N͚̱̼̣͚̘DE̮̥͇̣͢R͓̟̻͙͜?̘” roared a familiar voice. The entire room erupted into screaming.

“Took him long enough,” Willow thought to herself, and promptly passed out.

 

* * *

 

“So,” Acacia said, looking up at the two bloody figures that had just teleported into the Mystery Shack, “good walk?”

“Honestly? I’m not sure,” Dipper responded. He floated over to the sofa and gently placed Willow on her side.

“Wait, what does that mean?” Acacia said, bolting upright way more quickly than someone of her age should be able to.

“No, she’s fine!” he quickly backtracked. “She’s breathing. She was having an asthma attack but I… I got to her in time. It’s funny, though, how she went out walking in the woods late at night without her inhaler or _her sister_.”

Acacia shifted guiltily in her seat under her uncle’s gaze. “Hey, I, I tried,” she stammered. “Let the record show that I, Acacia Castañeda, tried.”

Dipper smiled. “Yeah, I know.” He magically pulled up a chair next to the chair Willow had pulled up earlier, and then ignored it by floating over to sit on the floor next to Acacia. “I said I wasn’t sure because I feel like she maybe wanted this to happen.”

“Oh, I absolutely did,” Willow said, opening her eyes. Dipper and Acacia both stared at her. “See this, big sis? All it takes to get your dream demon uncle out of a mopey depressive cycle is to purposefully put yourself into mortal danger.”

“What?!” Dipper spluttered, rising into the air. “This was for me?! D̮̮̬o ̙̰͎y͚̗o̺̣ͅu̫̮͕̰ ̺̗h̖̲̝̲̫̫̜a̮̱̖̗̩̝v̝e͇͕̜ ͈̤̮̹̪͈̟an̪̩͕͉͕͔̪y͙̺̣͚ i̫̞͈̱͍͚͇ḏ̙e̮̦a̟̗͓͎͍ h̪͍̲͎̞͚͎ow̫̫̖ͅ ͔w̤o͓̬̼̼̼̫̮r̬̮̬͙̣r̗i̮̦̙͓e̪̲͕̫̣̱̘d͎̟͖ ͓I̜̦̳̙̰̝͕ wa͎͈̱̺̭s̮͔̼̤̟̰̩ ͕͍̮a͔̳͙̣̘̦b̰o͓̭̝͙̬̺̠u̬t̗̞̘͇̠ͅ ̙y͕ọ̫̫͚̪̞͖u̲̰͚̠̞̘̖?̰̪̯̪”

“Of course this was for you,” Willow said. “You think I took a midnight walk in the cold for my health?”

“ _Antares_ , you are 93 years old, and your health should be your number one concern!” he shot back.

“Mortal danger?” Acacia asked, waving her hands through the staring contest her uncle and sister were apparently having. “Can someone tell me what happened here tonight?”

“She got caught by a cult,” Dipper responded.

“Ugh, not at all,” Willow said, rolling her eyes. “I practically let them catch me.”

Dipper beamed at her. “Why didn't you escape? I know you could've easily overpowered those bozos with your empathy powers.”

Willow shrugged. “I'm old now. I'm sure you won't understand this, but things get harder when you're older. Anyway, they bound my hands and feet with rope.”

“Which you could have easily burned away.”

“Yeah, if I wasn’t having an asthma attack.”

Dipper gaped at her. “You really put yourself in danger? I thought you hated asking people for help!”

“Nothing else was going to get you to realize what a big dummy you were being!” his niece huffed, sounding in that moment a lot like her mother.

Acacia stared at them. “This may sound weird, coming from me, but I think you two need to calm down.”

Dipper and Willow turned to face Acacia. “You're right,” the demon said. ”That does sound weird coming from you.”

“Yeah, but she's also right,” Willow added. ”We need to just talk.” She started to sit up, but broke into a coughing fit instead. Acacia jumped up and plopped herself on the sofa next to her. Dipper floated down and sat on the armrest. The three of them just sat there in silence for a few minutes.

“We all miss her, Uncle Dipper,” Acacia said. ”We all wish she was still here.”

“But you, you're still here. And we are too,” Willow continued.

Dipper sighed. “I know. But someday you won't be. And it'll hurt just as bad.”

“Yeah, but you've also got our kids, and when they're gone you'll have their kids, and so on,” Acacia said. She grabbed her uncle’s hat and put it on. “You're never going to be alone because you have a family that loves you.”

“At least, as long as you stay in their lives,” Willow added, ”as opposed to hiding away in the Mindscape forever.”

“You think you're the only person who goes through loss?” Acacia said. ”Newsflash: that isn't an immortal-exclusive problem. People lose their loved ones all the time. You're just lucky enough to be able to keep finding new loved ones.”

Willow opened her mouth to speak, but stopped when she saw the golden tears dripping onto her. She looked up and saw her uncle, the scariest, most vicious, most dorky and sentimental demon in the universe. She saw him crying and saw in his aura that it wasn't out of despair, but out of love. She made another attempt to sit up, and wrapped her sobbing demon uncle in a massive hug. Acacia stood up and joined in, tearing up herself.

The three of them sat there like that, hugging and crying, for a long while. Dipper looked inside of himself, at the massive tree of bonds that represented his family. He saw his bond to Mabel and felt a tug at his heart, but in sight of all the other vibrant and loving connections he had to this world, he couldn't help but feel… warm. He would always miss his twin, his Mizar, but he was determined to live on anyway.

“Alright, now that that's out of the way,” Acacia said eventually, pulling herself out of the pile of Pines, “who's going to clean up the blood?”

They all laughed, and Dipper snapped his fingers. “Done. All better.”

Willow smiled. “I wouldn’t say it’s all better. But? It’s a start.”

**Author's Note:**

> My idea behind this fic: what if, after Mabel dies, Dipper copes not through self harm but through dissociation? As a dream demon, it would probably be right up his alley. Then I had feels.


End file.
